CHAPTER I.
In the preceding book, Spanish affairs have been little noticed, although lord Wellington’s combinations were deeply affected by them. The general position of the allies, extending from Coruña to Cadiz, presented a great crescent, in the convex of which the French armies were operating, and it was clear that, when checked at Lisbon, the most important point, their wings, could reinforce the centre, unless the allied forces, at the horns of the crescent, acted vigorously on a system which the harbours and fortresses, at either extremity, pointed out as suitable to those who possessed the absolute command of the sea. A British army and fleet were therefore established at Cadiz, and a squadron of frigates at Coruña; and how far this warfare relieved the pressure on lord Wellington I shall now show.
The Gallician troops, under Mahi, usually hanging on the borders of Leon, were always reported to be above twenty thousand men when arms or stores were demanded from England; but there were never more than ten or twelve thousand in line, and, although Serras’ division, of only eight thousand, was spread over the plains, from Benevente to the Agueda, during Massena’s advance, no stroke of importance was effected against it; the arrival of the ninth corps, in October, put an end to all hopes from the Gallicians in that quarter, although the Partidas often surprised both posts and convoys. Behind Mahi there was, however, a second army, from four to six thousand strong, embodied to defend the coast line towards the Asturias; and, in the latter province, about eight thousand men, including the irregular bands of Porlier and other chiefs, constantly watched Bonet’s movements.
That general frequently mastered the Asturias, but could never maintain himself there; because the country is a long defile, lying between the great mountains and the sea, and being crossed by a succession of parallel ridges and rivers, is admirably calculated for partizan warfare in connexion with a fleet. Thus, if he penetrated towards Gallicia, British and Spanish frigates, from Coruña, landing troops at the ports of Gihon, Santander, or Santona, could always form a junction with the great bands of Longa, Mina, and Amor, and excite insurrections on his rear.
In this manner Porlier, as before related, forced him to withdraw from Castropol, after he had defeated general Ponte at Sales, about the period of Almeida being invested; and the advantages of such operations being evident, the British government sent sir Home Popham to direct the naval, and general Walker the military affairs at Coruña. Preparations were then made to embark a considerable force, under Renovales, to renew the attack at Santona and Santander; the Partidas of the interior were to move at the same time; a battalion of marines was assembled, in England, to garrison Santona, when taken; and Mahi promised to co-operate Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.by an incursion. Serras, however, threatened the frontier of Gallicia, and Mahi remained in suspense, and this, together with the usual procrastination of the Spaniards, and the late arrival of sir Home Popham, delayed the expedition until October. Meanwhile, Porlier, Escadron, and other chiefs commenced an isolated attack in the beginning of September. Serras returned to Zamora, Mahi sent a division into Leon, and Bonet, aware of the preparations at Coruña, first concentrated at Oviedo, and then fell back towards Santander, leaving a post at Gihon.
On the 16th of October Renovales sailed but with only thirteen hundred men; accompanied, however, by general Walker, who carried ten thousand stand of arms and ammunition. The 19th, entering the harbour of Gihon, they captured some French vessels; and Porlier, coming up on the land side, took some treasure and eighty prisoners. The next day, Renovales proceeded to Santona, but tempests impeded his landing, and he returned to Coruña the 2d of November, with only eight hundred and fifty men: a frigate and a brig had foundered, with the remainder of his troops, in a dreadful gale, which destroyed all the Spanish naval force along the coast, twelve vessels being wrecked even in the harbour of Coruña. Meanwhile, Mahi, leaving Toboado Gil’s division to watch Serras, entered the Asturias with the rest of the Gallicians, and being joined first by the troops of that province, and soon after by Renovales, was very superior to the French; yet he effected nothing, and Bonet maintained his line from Gihon, through Oviedo, to the borders of Leon.
In this manner hostilities wore feebly on; the Junta of the Asturias continued, as from the first, distinguished by their venality and indifference to the public good; their province was in a miserable and exhausted state; and the powers of the British naval officers on the coast not being defined, occasioned some dispute between them and general Abstract of General Walker’s Military Reports from Gallicia. MSS.Walker; and gave opportunity to the Junta to interfere improperly with the distribution of the English stores. Gallicia was comparatively rich, but its Junta culpably inactive in the discharge of duties and oppressive in government, disgusted the whole province, and a general desire to end their power was prevalent. In the course of the winter a combination of the clergy was formed to oppose both the Local Junta and the General Cortes, and assumed so threatening an aspect that Mahi, who was then on the coast, applied to be taken in an English vessel to Coruña, to ensure his personal safety; one Acuña was soon after arrested at Ponferrada, the discontent spread, and the army was more employed to overawe these factions than to oppose the enemy. Little advantage, therefore, was derived from the Spanish operations in the north, and general Walker, despairing to effect any thing useful, desired either that a British force should be placed at his disposal or that he might join the army in Portugal.
These expeditions from Coruña naturally encreased the audacity of the inland partidas, who could only become really dangerous, by having a sea-port where they could receive supplies and reinforcements, or embarking save themselves in extremity, and change the theatre of operations. To prevent this, the emperor employed considerable numbers of men in the military governments touching on the Bay of Biscay, and directed, as we have seen, the corps d’armée, in their progress towards Portugal, to scour all the disturbed countries to the right and left. The ninth corps was thus employed during the months of August and September, but when it passed onward, the partidas resumed their activity. Mina, Longa, Campillo, and Amor, frequently united about Villar Caya and Espinosa in numbers sufficient to attack large French detachments with success; and to aid them, general Walker repeatedly recommended the taking possession of Santona with a corps of British troops. That town, having the best winter harbour along the coast, and being built on a mountain promontory joined to the main by a narrow sandy neck, could have been made very strong; it would have cut off Bonet’s communication with France by sea, have given the British squadron a secure post from whence to vex the French coasts; and it offered a point of connexion with the partidas of the Rioja, Biscay, and Navarre.
Lord Liverpool, swayed by these considerations, desired to employ a corps of four thousand men to secure it; but, having first demanded lord Wellington’s Letter to Lord Liverpool. 7th May, 1811. MSS.opinion, the latter “earnestly recommended that no such maritime operations should be undertaken. For,” said he, “unless a very large force was sent, it would scarcely be able to effect a landing, and maintain the situation of which it might take possession. Then that large force would be unable to move or effect any object at all adequate to the expense, or to the expectations which would be formed from its strength, owing to the want of those equipments and supplies in which an army landed from its ships must be deficient. It was vain to hope for any assistance, even in this way, much less military assistance from the Spaniards; the first thing they would require uniformly would be money; then arms, ammunition, clothing of all descriptions, provisions, forage, horses, means of transport, and every thing which the expedition would have a right to require from them; and, after all, this extraordinary and perverse people would scarcely allow the commander of the expedition to have a voice in the plan of operations, to be followed when the whole should be ready to undertake any, if indeed they ever should be ready.”
Meanwhile Napoleon caused Caffarelli’s reserve to enter Spain, ordered Santona to be fortified, directed other reinforcements from France upon the northern provinces, and finally sent marshal Bessieres to command the young guard, the third and fourth governments, and that of the Asturias, including Bonet’s division, the whole forming a distinct force, called the army of the north.
Appendix, [No. I.] Section 6.
The 1st of January, 1811, this army exceeded seventy thousand, of which fifty-nine thousand men and eight thousand horses, were present under arms; and Bessieres, who had received unusual powers, was especially ordered to support and furnish all necessary assistance to the army of Portugal. This was the state of the northern parts of Spain.
In the middle parts, the army of the centre, or that immediately under the king, at first about twenty thousand, was, before the end of the year, carried up to twenty-seven thousand, exclusive of French and Spanish guards and juramentados, or native troops, who had taken the oath of allegiance: with this power he protected his court, watched the movements of the Valencians, and chased the Guerillas of the interior.
The summer and autumn of 1810 were, however, for reasons before-mentioned, the period of greatest activity with these irregulars; numerous petty actions were constantly fought around the capital, many small French posts, and numbers of isolated men and officers, were cut off, and few despatches reached their destinations without a considerable escort. To remedy this, the lines of correspondence were maintained by small fortified posts which run from Madrid; through Guadarama and Segovia to the provinces of Valladolid and Salamanca; through Buitrago and Somosierra to the army of the north; through Guadalaxara and Calatayud to the army of Aragon; through La Mancha to the army of the south; and by the valley of the Tagus, Arzobispo, and Truxillo, to the fifth corps during its incursions into Estremadura; a brigade of cavalry, was also generally stationed at Truxillo.
As the warfare of the Partidas was merely a succession of surprises and massacres, little instruction, and no pleasure, can be derived from the details; but in the course of the summer and autumn, not less than twelve considerable, and an infinite number of trifling affairs, took place between the moveable columns and these bands: and the latter being almost always beaten; at the close of the year, only the Empecinado, Sanchez, Longa, Campillo, Porlier, and Mina retained any reputation, and the country people were so harassed, that counter Partidas, in many places assisted the French.
The situation of the army of the centre enabled the king to aid Massena, either by an advance upon the Elga, or by reinforcing, or, at least, supporting the fifth corps in Estremadura. But Joseph, troubled by the Partidas, and having many convoys to protect, was also averse to join any of the marshals, with all of whom, except Massena, he was on ill terms; neither were his relations with Napoleon such as to induce him to take an interest Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 4.in any military operations, save those which affected the immediate security of his court. His poverty was extreme; he was surrounded by French and Spanish intriguers; his plan of organizing a national party was thwarted by his brother’s regulations; plots were formed, or supposed to be formed, against his person, and, in this uneasy posture, the secondary part he was forced to sustain, combined with his natural gentleness which shrunk from the terrible scenes of bloodshed and devastation continually before his eyes, rendered his situation so irksome, that he resolved to vacate the throne and retire to France, a resolution which he soon afterwards partially executed. Such being the course of affairs in the northern and central provinces, it remains to trace the more important military operations at the southern horn of the crescent, where the allies were most favourably situated to press the left flank of the invaders.
Sebastiani was peculiarly exposed to a harassing warfare, because of the city of Grenada and other towns in the interior, which he was obliged to hold at the same time with those on the coast, although the two districts were completely separated by the mountains. Hence a large body of troops were necessarily kept in the strip of country bordering the Mediterranean, although menaced, on the one flank by Gibraltar and the Spanish troops at San Roque, on the other by the Murcian army, and, in front by continual descents from the sea; yet, from the shallowness and length of their position, unable to concentrate in time to avoid being cut off in detail. Now the Murcian army, nominally twenty thousand, was based upon the cities of Murcia and Carthagena, and menaced alike the coast-line and that of Grenada by the route of Baza and Guadix; and any movement towards the latter was sure to attract the French, while troops landing from Cadiz or Gibraltar fell upon their disseminated posts along the coast.
To meet this system, Sebastiani, keeping his reserves about Grenada, where he had entrenched a permanent camp, made sudden incursions, sometimes against the Murcians, sometimes against the Spanish forces on the side of Gibraltar; but that fortress afforded a refuge to the patriots on one side, and Carthagena, surrounded by arid lands, where, for two marches, no water is to be found, always offered a sure retreat on the other. Meanwhile the French general endeavoured to gain the important castles on the coast, and to put them into a state of defence; yet Estipona and Marbella were defended by the Spaniards, and the latter sustained many attacks, nor was it finally reduced until the 9th of December, when the garrison, of one hundred men, took refuge on board the Topaze frigate. But Sebastiani’s hold of these towns, and even the security of the French troops along the coast, depended upon the communications across the mountains with Grenada, Chiclana, and Seville, and to impede these, general Campbell sent British officers into the Ronda, who successfully directed the wild mountaineers of that district, until their operations were marred by Lascy’s misconduct.
The various movements and insurrections in Grenada during the summer of 1810 have been already noted, but, in October, general Campbell and admiral Penrose, conjointly with the governor of Ceuta, renewed the design of surprising Malaga, where were many privateers and a flotilla of gun-boats, supposed to be destined against the islands near Ceuta. The French depôt for the siege of Marbella was at Fuengirola, which is only thirty miles from Malaga, and it was judged that an attack there would draw the troops from the latter place; and the more surely, as general Valdemoro, commanding the Spanish force at San Roque, engaged to co-operate on the side of Ronda.
EXPEDITION OF FUENGIROLA.
General C. Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.
On the 13th of October, captain Hope, in the Topaze, sailed from Ceuta, with a division of gun-boats and a convoy, containing a brigade of twelve-pounders, sixty-five gunners, a battalion of the eighty-ninth regiment, a detachment of foreign deserters, and the Spanish imperial regiment of Toledo, in all fifteen hundred men, including serjeants. Lord Blayney, commanding this force, was directed to make a false attack on Fuengirola, and should the enemy come out from Malaga, he was to sail against that place. A landing was effected the same day, and Sebastiani instantly marched, leaving only three hundred men in Malaga: lord Blayney was as instantly apprised of the success of the demonstration, yet he remained two days cannonading the castle with twelve-pounders, although the heavier metal of the gun-boats and of the frigate, had failed to make any impression on the walls; and during this time his dispositions betrayed the utmost contempt of military rules. Appendix, [No. XI.]On the second day, while he was on board a gun-boat himself, the garrison, which did not exceed two hundred men, having first descried Sebastiani’s column, made a sally, took the battery, and drove the British part of the investing force headlong towards the boats. Lord Blayney landed, rallied his men, and retook the artillery; but at this moment two squadrons of French cavalry came up, and his lordship, mistaking them for Spaniards, ordered the firing to cease. He was immediately made prisoner; his troops again fled to the beach, and would have been sabred but for the opportune arrival of the Rodney with the eighty-second regiment, the flank companies of which were immediately disembarked and first checked the enemy. The Spanish regiment, untouched by the panic, regained the ships regularly and without loss; but, of the British, two officers and thirty men were killed or wounded, and one general, seven inferior officers, and nearly two hundred serjeants and privates taken. Thus an expedition, well contrived and adequate to its object, was ruined by misconduct, and terminated in disaster and disgrace.
Scarcely was this affair finished, when Valdemoro and the marquis of Portasgo appeared in the Ronda, an insurrection commenced at Velez Malaga and in the neighbouring villages; and Blake, who had returned from Cadiz to the army in Murcia, advanced, with eight thousand men, towards Cullar on the side of Baza. General General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.Campbell immediately furnished money to Portasgo, and embarked a thousand stand of arms for the people of Velez Malaga. An English frigate was also sent to cruize along the coast, yet Sebastiani, relieved from the fear of a descent, soon quelled this insurrection; and then sending Milhaud on before with some cavalry, followed himself with reinforcements for general Rey, who was opposed to Blake. The latter, retiring behind the Almanzora river, was overtaken by Milhaud, and, being defeated on the 4th of November, his army dispersed: at the same time, a contagious fever, breaking out at Carthagena, spread along the coast to Gibraltar and Cadiz, and the Spanish operations on the side of Murcia ceased.
In the kingdom of Seville, the war turned chiefly upon the blockade of the Isla, and the movements of the Spanish armies in Estremadura. Provisions for Cadiz were principally drawn from the Condado de Neibla, and it has been seen that Copons, aided by descents from the ocean, endeavoured to secure this important resource; but neither his efforts, nor the descents, would have availed, if Ballasteros had not co-operated by constantly menacing Seville from Araceña and the Aroche mountains. Neither could Ballasteros have maintained the war there, were it not for the support of Badajos and Olivenza; under cover of which, Romana’s army protected his line of operation, and sent military supplies and reinforcements. On the possession of Badajos, therefore, the supply of Cadiz chiefly depended.
Seville was the French point of defence; Cadiz Estremadura and the Condado de Neibla their points of offence. The want of provisions, or the desire to cut off the Spanish convoys, or the sudden irruption of troops from Cadiz, threatening their posts at Moguer and Huelva, always drew them towards the coast; the enterprises of Ballasteros brought them towards Araceña; and, in like manner, the advance of Romana towards the mountains brought them to Estremadura; but Romana had wasted the greater part of the latter province, and as the fifth corps alone was disposable either for offensive movements, or for the defence of the country around Seville, Soult contented himself with such advantages as could be gained by sudden strokes; frequently, however, crossing the mountains to prevent the Spaniards from permanently establishing themselves on the frontier of Andalusia.
In October, Romana entered the Lines of Torres Vedras, and Mendizabal, who remained with two divisions, finding that Mortier, unconscious of Romana’s absence, had retired across the mountains, occupied Merida. He would also have established himself in the yet unwasted country about Llerena; but the appearance of a moveable column on the frontier of La Mancha, sent him back to Badajos, and, on the 20th of November, he united with Ballasteros. The French then fortified Gibraleon and other posts in the Condado de Neibla; Girard’s division re-appeared at Guadalcanal, and being joined by the column from La Mancha, foraged the country towards Llerena: whereupon Mendizabel took post at Zafra with nine thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, including Madden’s Portuguese brigade. Meanwhile, Copons, who had four thousand men, was totally defeated at Castillejos by D’Aremberg, and retired to Puebla de Gusman.
At Cadiz, no change or military event had occurred after the affair of Matagorda, save the expeditions against Moguer already noticed, and a slight attempt of the Spaniards against the Chiclana works in September; but all men’s hopes and expectations had been wonderfully raised by political events which it was fondly hoped would secure both independence and a good constitution to Spain. After two years of intrigues and delay, the National Cortes was assembled, and the long suppressed voice of the people was at last to be heard. Nevertheless the members of the Cortes could not be duly and legally chosen in the provinces possessed by the enemy; and as some members were captured by the French on their journey to Cadiz, many persons unknown, even by name, to their supposed constituents, were chosen: a new principle of election, unknown to former Cortes, was also adopted; for all persons twenty-five years old, not holding office or pension under the government, nor incapacitated by crime, nor by debts to the state, nor by bodily infirmity, were eligible to sit if chosen. A supplement of sixty-eight members was likewise provided to supply accidental vacancies; and it was agreed that twenty-six persons then in Spain, natives of the colonies, should represent those dependencies.
Towards the latter end of September this great assembly met, and immediately took the title of Majesty: it afterwards declared the press free in respect of political, but not of religious matters, abolished some of the provincial juntas, re-appointed captains-general, and proceeded to form a constitution worded in the spirit of republican freedom. These things, aided by a vehement eloquence, drew much attention to the proceedings of the Cortes, and a fresh impulse seemed given to the war: but men brought up under despotism do not readily attain the fashions of freedom. The Provincial Junta, the Central Junta, the Junta of Cadiz, the Regency, had all been, in succession, violent and tyrannical in act, while claiming only to be popular leaders, and this spirit did not desert the Cortes. Abstract principles of liberty were freely promulgated, yet tyrannical and partial proceedings were of common occurrence; and the reformations, by outstripping the feelings and understandings of the nation, weakened the main springs of its resistance to the French. It was not for liberty, but for national pride and from religious influence, that the people struck. Freedom had no attractions for the nobles, nor for the monastics, nor even for the merchants; and the Cortes, in suppressing old establishments and violating old forms and customs, wounded powerful interests, created active enemies, and shocked those very prejudices which had produced resistance to Napoleon.
In the administration of the armies, in the conduct of the war, in the execution of the laws, and the treatment of the colonies, there was as much of vanity, of intrigue, of procrastination, negligence, folly, and violence as before. Hence the people were soon discontented; and when the power of the religious orders was openly attacked by a proposition to abolish the inquisition, the clergy became active enemies of the Cortes. The great cause of feudal privileges being once given up, the natural tendency of the Cortes was towards the enemy. A broad line of distinction was thus drawn between the objects of the Spanish and English governments in the prosecution of the war; and, ere the contest was finished, there was a schism between the British cabinet and the Spanish government, which would inevitably have thrown the latter into Napoleon’s hands, if fortune had not, at the moment, betrayed him in Russia.
The Regency, jealous of the Cortes, and little pleased with the inferior title of highness accorded them, were far from partaking of the republican spirit, and so anxious to check any tendency towards innovation, that early in the year they had invited the duke of Orleans to command the provinces bordering on France, permitted him to issue proclamations, and received him at Cadiz with the honours of a royal prince; intending to oppose his authority to that of the Local Juntas at the moment, and finally to that of the Cortes. The latter, however, refused their sanction to this appointment, obliged the duke to quit Spain, and soon afterwards displaced the Regency of Five; appointing Joachim Blake, Gabriel Cisgar, and Pedro Agar in their stead. During the absence of the two first, substitutes were provided, but one of them (Palacios) making some difficulty about taking the oath to the Cortes, was immediately declared to have forfeited the confidence of the nation; so peremptorily did the Cortes proceed.
Nevertheless, the new regents, not more pleased with the democratic spirit than their predecessors, and yet wishing to retain the power in their own hands, refused to listen to the princess of Brazils’ claim, and thus factions sprung up on every side; for the republicans were not paramount in the Cortes at first, and the majority were so subtilely dealt with by Pedro Souza, as actually to acknowledge Carlotta’s hereditary claim to the succession and to the immediate control of the whole Peninsula; and, as I have before noticed, would have proclaimed her sole Regent, but for the interference of lord Wellington.
Don Manuel Lapeña being declared captain-general of Andalusia, and commander of the forces in the Isla, was subservient to the views of the Cortes; but the new Regency, anxious to have a counterbalancing force, and being instigated also by persons from Badajos, enemies to Romana, removed that officer in December, and ordered his divisions to separate from the British army and come to Cadiz. The conduct of those divisions had, indeed, given little satisfaction either to the British or Portuguese, but numbers were so absolutely Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.necessary to lord Wellington, that colonel O’Neal was sent to remonstrate with the Regency; and, by shewing that the fall of Estremadura, and the total loss of communication with the interior of Spain would ensue, obtained a momentary respite.
In matters relating to the war against the French, or to the administration of the country, the Spanish leaders were incapable of acting cordially on any mature plan; but with respect to the colonies, all parties agreed to push violence, injustice, cruelty, and impolicy to their utmost bounds. To please the British government, the first Regency had published, in May, a decree, permitting the South Americans to export their own products, under certain conditions. This legalizing of a trade, which could not be suppressed, and which was but a decent return to England for her assistance, gave offence to the Municipal Junta of Cadiz, and its resentment was so much dreaded that the Regency, in June, disowned their own decree of the previous month, and even punished the printers, as having given birth to a forged instrument. Exasperated at this treatment, the colonies, who had resisted all the intrigues of the French, with a firmness and singleness of purpose very displeasing to the government in Old Spain, openly discovered their discontent, and then the authorities in the Mother Country, throwing off the mask of liberality and patriotism, exposed their own secret views. “It is not enough that Americans should be Spanish subjects now, but that in all cases they should belong to Spain,” was the proclamation of the Regency, in answer to a declaration from the Caraccas, avowing attachment to the cause of Ferdinand: meaning that, if Spain should pass under the power of the usurper America must follow, as having no right to decide in any case for herself.
When the Cortes met, America expected more justice; she had contributed ninety millions of dollars for the support of the war, and many of her sons had served zealously in person; she had also been declared an integral part of the empire by the Central Junta, and her deputies were now permitted to sit in the Great National Assembly. She was however soon made to understand, that the first of these privileges meant eternal slavery, and that the second was a mere form. “The Americans complain of having been tyrannized over for three hundred years! they shall now suffer for three thousand years,” and “I know not to what class of beast the Americans belong:” such were the expressions heard and applauded in the Cortes, when the rights of the colonists were agitated in that assembly. Better to lose Spain to Joseph, if America be retained, than to save Spain if America be separated from her, was a feeling deeply rooted in every Spanish heart, a sentiment covertly expressed in many public documents, and openly acted upon; for, when repeated insults, treachery, and continued violence, had driven the colonists to defend their rights in arms, the money and stores, supplied by England for the support of the war against the French, were applied to the fitting out of expeditions against America. Thus the convocation of the National Cortes, far from improving the posture of affairs, dried up the chief sources of revenue, weakened the army in the field, offended many powerful bodies in the state, involved the nation in a colonial war, and struck at the root of the alliance with England.